Very interesting, albeit frightening, read. It's scary how someone can change so much and how family and friends can influence people. I wonder how many moves that racist nut job is away from totally changing his world view again?

It's interesting right. What I find most interesting is that they are mostly young men. You see it with the alt-right, but also a lot of terrorist attacks are committed by young men. Even a lot of antifa is young men. They seem much more susceptible to radicalization for some reason. The alt-right especially seems to take advantage of this very well, the movement is huge.

DissidentRage
wrote on November 15, 2017 at 3:23 PM
(edited on November 15, 2017 at 3:25 PM)

I think environmental entrenchment in ideology and privileged access contribute to it.

In my own experience I was raised in a very highly conservative but poor family. When the recession hit I drifted into the right-libertarian Ron Paul sphere. There were issues I had with the ideology I could never resolve (like the abject denial of externalities), but in hindsight I think I latched onto it because the recession wiped me out and I was desperate to hear something that made me feel more in control of my circumstances than I was. The whole "bootstraps" thing made me think that if I could just figure out how to do everything the right way, I would be better off.

A combination of being made homeless a couple times and pondering on the issues I had with the ideology pushed me left. These experiences helped me realize how toxic and judgmental right-libertarianism is. There are days I wonder if I would have continued a rightward trajectory if I had a well-to-do family to buffer me from the harsh realities of life and to reinforce my worldview at the time.

Life is suffering and pain, and still I am unhappy with the life I lead, but I am accepting the things I cannot change, focused on who exactly is at fault for the things that go wrong, and comforted finally having a worldview that isn't rife with unresolved contradictions. And of course, the leftist community is much more diverse and vibrant than any rightist coalition could ever be.

Agreed. With the rise of real equality, obviously a good thing, many men, especially, white men, seem to be lost as to what their role is. My worry is that the West in general is starting to parallel the 1930s again where fascists and communists are duking it out in the streets. I don't know how it's going to end, but it's gonna get worse before it gets better